Marian Farrell, Student
What are your plans for the weekend?
I’m heading to New Jersey. I go to Parsons, but I go there almost every weekend; I work at a farm-to-table restaurant near my parents’ house on Saturdays and Sundays. And — well, I’m seeing one of the sous-chefs. Which is funny, because I’m not much of a relationship person. Usually, I’m kind of a player.
So how’d it happen?
I started smiling at him. And asking him to do little favors, like fry me basil leaves. He’d say: “For you, I can do anything.” Then he asked me for drinks, and neither of us showed up. And then I was gone for a while because during the summer I work at a larping camp — “live-action role playing.”
You work at a larping camp?
Yes. It’s the very same larping camp I went to as a child. Every year, someone writes the story of the game, which unfolds over a weekend. It’s very in-depth. The campers could be, say, at a carnival, and suddenly fairies from the future storm in and announce that one of the carnival directors is evil; then havoc breaks out. I’m the production designer, so I figure out, like, how to turn a counselor into a mermaid. Anyway, when I got back, we went out on a date.
Lightning Round
Age: 22.
Neighborhood: Bed-Stuy.
Siblings: Four.
Last read: The God of Small Things.
Last seen: “I went to go see The Favourite with my mother and my mother’s mother, and we all felt like there was so little humanity in it.”
*This article appears in the March 18, 2019, issue of New York Magazine. Subscribe Now!
